The Feynman method

About a year ago I started studying quantum mechanics for a writing project. So it happened that I went around taking photos with my head full of incomprehensible concepts and formulas. At a certain point I realized that the camera was translating my doubts into anomalous and different photographs from the usual. They helped me understand, and giving them this online exhibition is a way of thanking them.

Cronotopia – quantum photography – exhibition will be available online on the Le Vecchie Foto delle Stelle website from 1st October 2023 to 21st February 2024.

Il metodo Feynman

Da circa un anno ho preso a studiare la meccanica quantistica, per un progetto di scrittura. È accaduto quindi che andassi in giro a fare foto con la testa piena di concetti e formule incomprensibili. A un certo punto ho realizzato che la macchina fotografica stava traducendo le mie perplessità in fotografie anomale e diverse dal solito. Mi hanno aiutato a capire, e regalare loro questa mostra online è un modo di ringraziarle.

La mostra Cronotopia – quantum photography – sarà disponibile online sul sito de Le vecchie foto delle stelle dal 1 ottobre 2023 al 21 febbraio 2024.

Planck's Constant

h = 6.62607015 × 10-34 m2 kg/s

From its beginning, the new regime was symbolized by Planck’s constant h, introduced in his famous paper of 1900. Measuring the world’s departure from smooth, continuous behavior, h proved to be a very small number, but different from zero. Wherever it appeared, strange phenomena came with it. What it really meant was of course mysterious.

Wave-particle Duality

λ = h/(mv)

A young French physics student, Louis de Broglie, began to wonder whether could particles exhibit the properties of waves? In 1924, de Broglie proposed that a particle such as an electron could be described by a wave whose wavelength is given by where h is Planck’s constant, m is the mass of the particle, and v is the velocity of the particle. For his work, de Broglie received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1929.

Wave function

iℏΨ = HΨ

Experimental evidence suggested that atomic particles were also wave-like in nature.  Therefore, it was reasonable to assume that a wave equation could explain the behaviour of atomic particles. Schrödinger was the first person to write down such a wave equation. The solution to this equation is a wave that describes the quantum aspects of a system. However, physically interpreting the wave is one of the main philosophical problems of quantum mechanics.

Quantum Superposition

| ψ 〉 = α | φ 〉 + β | ξ 〉

Superposition refers to a physical system that exists in multiple states simultaneously based on a specific set of solutions. The most commonly used set of solutions is all possible solutions, also known as Hilbert space. In quantum physics, the Hilbert space is the mathematical representation of all the possible states the system can take. Most people have encountered this principle as Schrödinger’s Cat, a thought experiment that explains the concept and paradox of quantum superposition.

Uncertainty Principle

Δx Δp ≥ h4π

Formulated by the German physicist and Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the uncertainty principle states that we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle, such as a photon or electron, with perfect accuracy; the more we nail down the particle’s position, the less we know about its speed and vice versa. In other words, if we could shrink a tortoise down to the size of an electron, we would only be able to precisely calculate its speed or its location, not both at the same time.

Entanglement

(∂ + m) ψ = 0

The above equation is that of Dirac and is the most beautiful equation known in physics. In practice states that: “If two systems interact with each other for a certain period of time and are then separated, they can no longer be described as two distinct systems, but somehow, they become one system. In other words, what happens to one of them continues to influence the other, even if they are kilometers or light years away “.

CREDITS

Cronotopia online photo exhibition is a free content designed and brought to you by Le vecchie foto delle stelle. Creative Commons License CC BY 4.0 .

Discover all the photo projects, the online exhibitions and the archived material on Le vecchie foto delle stelle’s website.

PHOTO: © Photo Daniele Prati - Le vecchie foto delle stelle

Quantum sharing

Share on social media if you liked it (it’s free as your welcome visit) and much appreciated…

LE DUE MOSTRE PRECEDENTI

shop & support

There are some methods available to show some love for this and the other projects and exhibitions:

BEFORE LEAVING

Thank you very much for visiting CRONOTOPIA, I hope you enjoyed it. If you wish, before leaving us, you can offer to pay an exit symbolic ticket of 2 euros on a platform of your choice between PayPal and Buy Me a Coffee.

And don’t forget that if you want it as a souvenir you can download the exhibition poster for free in pdf format.

DOWNLOAD POSTER [A4 pdf 22 MB]